


Five Times Peter Parker Could Manage On His Own, One Time he Couldn't

by AnIrishGal



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 15:51:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13999476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnIrishGal/pseuds/AnIrishGal
Summary: Peter Parker was no ordinary teenager - he was Spiderman. He was a superhero. He took on the bad guys to help make Queens a safe place. But sometimes even the superheroes need help.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is also posted on Fanfiction. It's my first published fanfic so take it easy on me!! Constructive feedback welcome!!

Working late  
Dinner in the fridge   
May x

When Peter walked into the apartment after school, pulling his earphones out and calling for Aunt May, he couldn’t deny that he panicked a little before he found the note explaining her whereabouts. Weird, he thought, Aunt May thinks she’s a cool aunt, why didn’t she just text? A thousand different scenarios began running through his head, from Aunt May being caught up in some bank robbery somewhere, to her being held ransom by someone who’d found out Spiderman’s true identity. He just caught himself before he pulled out his phone to call Mr Stark. He was being ridiculous. He was obviously thinking too much into this, which was an unfortunate result of his activities as Spiderman – he was sure every time May wasn’t at home, something could’ve happened to her. Still…. A text couldn’t hurt, right? He pulled out his phone and shot Aunt May a text just to check all was ok.

Brushing his paranoia aside for another time, Peter focused on the problem at hand: May’s cooking. 

He knew his aunt tried her best and, despite the countless slices of burnt toast and near-misses with regards to almost chargrilled bacon, he didn’t have the heart to tell her he wasn’t exactly a fan of her cooking. When he opened the fridge to find one of Aunt May’s infamous meatloaves, he came to the solid conclusion that he would have to make an alternative arrangement for dinner while his aunt was still at work. He’d sent the text already, he could just pretend he hadn’t seen the note and was completely ignorant to the existence of one of his aunt’s delightful homemade meatloaves. 

While completing his homework for the evening, Peter ran through some possible options for his dinner – it wasn’t often he had this much freedom when it came to his evening meal. He’d even considered inviting Ned over for dinner, before realising perhaps he was getting a bit carried away with this whole making dinner thing. A teenager making themselves dinner isn’t that big of a deal. Other kids do this all the time, this is not a huge event Pete, just relax and throw a frozen pizza in the oven or something. At least this time it won’t be burnt around the edges. 

Finishing his homework, Peter decided he would eat before going for his evening patrol. At least then he could claim to have already eaten when Aunt May eventually got home. 

Now time for the main event, Peter thought excitedly. He realised he was potentially making this into a much bigger event that it was, but he never really got the opportunity to cook, and was curious as to just how good he was. 

What Peter didn’t take into account was that he had actually cooked a grand total of three things in his life. The first being when he had first come to live with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and he had decided to bake his Aunt May a birthday cake to show his appreciation for everything she had done for him in the short time he had been there. Despite enlisting Uncle Ben as Assistant Baker (Peter was Head Baker in his kitchen, thank you very much), the cake hadn’t turned out great. Well, really it was a bit of a disaster, somehow managing to be burnt and undercooked at the same time, which Peter was somewhat proud of. The second and third times had both been on occasions when Aunt May had been working late, similar to tonight, except that, again, he and Uncle Ben had teamed up to try and make a warm and welcoming dinner for Aunt May to come home to. The results of these attempts ended up being pretty similar: they were nice if you added a generous amount of salt and chewed and swallowed without actually tasting. 

Peter took after May in the cooking department far more than he would care to admit. 

Despite this, Peter strode confidently into the kitchen, bypassing the frozen pizza to go straight to the cupboard housing the pasta and tomato sauce. Pasta’s easy right? A safe choice, but if done just right is still pretty impressive. Students in college could successfully make pasta to the stage that they lived on the stuff – Peter could do this. He created his own formula for his web solution, he could boil some water and make some pasta. Piece of cake. Maybe he could even make some for Aunt May some night as a thank you for everything she’s done for him and at the same time, a reprieve from her attempts at cooking. He could even invite MJ over for some of his special homemade pasta if he ever got the guts to ask her out. He was looking forward to this. This was the beginning of something special.

Or, at least, that was the plan.

What Peter didn’t count on was the splash of boiling water which hit his hand as he was straining the pasta, which led his ultra-quick reflexes to pull his hand away, causing him to lose his grip on the pan and ended with a puddle of water at his feet, along with a rather pathetic looking pile of pasta – that looked quite well cooked in Peter’s opinion – by his feet. Admitting defeat, or, rather, accepting that he didn’t have time to start the pasta again, Peter cleared up his mess and figured that the frozen pizza didn’t sound too bad.

Later, when May came home, she discovered a tired-looking Peter lunging on the couch, watching some documentary about alien invasions, and a surprisingly neat apartment. 

“Hey sweetie,” she called out tiredly, ruffling Peter’s hair as she dumped her coat over the back of the couch on the way to the kitchen for some well-earned meatloaf.

“Hey May. Busy day, huh?” Peter asked while fixing his hair and pretending not to be listening out for his aunt’s reaction to the untouched meatloaf in the fridge. Despite enjoying a very nice frozen pizza that was definitely not burnt around the edges, just a bit browned and crunchy, thank you very much, he felt a bit guilty at his deception now his aunt was home. He figured he should probably tell her how he really felt about her cooking instead of continually subjecting himself to it hile having to pretend to enjoy the concoctions that were put in front of him.

“Peter, why didn’t you eat any of the meatloaf I left? Didn’t you see the note I left in clear view of the front door?” May asked, with a confused and quite suspicious tone.

“Oh yeah, I totally missed that. Don’t worry though, I had that pizza from the freezer, it’s all good I’ll have the meatloaf for tomorrow, yeah?” Peter replied, attempting to sound nonchalant. Breaking the news to May that he actually couldn’t stand her cooking could wait for another day. 

He thought he’d got away with it too. Until May went to clear her plate into the trash. That’s when he was rumbled.

“Peter, why is half of our pasta in the trash?”


	2. Chapter 2

It was just one of those days.

Don’t get the wrong idea, Peter loved being Spiderman. Yes, it was a big job and yes, he did find himself in dangerous situations more often than not, but all that was totally worth it for the adrenaline rush and that feeling when he knew he had kept an innocent citizen safe. 

One consequence Peter hadn’t fully considered was the late nights. Really, when compared to the big picture and the overall impact which, he hoped, Spiderman was having in Queens, a few hours of missed beauty sleep were a small price to pay. But Peter found it difficult to think of the big picture when his alarm clock started screaming at him after what felt like just a few hours of sleep, just like it did that morning. Like every other morning, Peter considered pulling a sickie. He was sure Ned would give him a copy of his notes and whatever homework they would be set, but, like every other morning, he thought the better of it. He didn’t need the school on his back about attendance on top of everything else on his plate at the moment. 

So, it was fair to say that a bleary-eyed Peter Parker was not in the brightest of moods when walking from the train to school that morning. With his earphones in and music blaring in a feeble attempt to liven himself up for the day, it took Peter longer than it should have to notice that everyone was looking at him, but not only looking, they were laughing at him. His head shot up from where he was staring at his shoes and his paranoia set in instantly, with a number of ridiculous scenarios flitting through his head as explanations for why he was suddenly the most hilarious sight at Midtown School of Science and Technology. 

Pulling out his earphones, he instantly found the answer. 

The sound of obnoxious revving behind him made him spin around and, sure enough, he was met with the sight of a laughing, smug looking Flash, lapping up the attention from the driver’s seat of his convertible Audi TT. Stepping out from the path of the car, Peter realised that Flash must have been crawling behind him in his car, revving it as loudly as possible and just generally being his annoying, attention-seeking self, and frankly, Peter was really not in the mood for it today. He watched, red-faced and angry, as Flash drove by him laughing and conducting the onlooking crowd expertly in his own favour and against Peter. Shoving one earphone back in, but leaving one out just in case, Peter continued his walk towards class. This time, however, it was more of a strop and Peter was wearing a notable scowl. 

It took Ned until around 8 minutes into their first class to notice that Peter wasn’t in the best of moods. Actually, he was fuming following his mass embarrassment at the hands of Flash this morning. Taking note of his quiet staring into space, or scowling into space (if that’s even a saying, Ned pondered, well if it’s not it should be…), along with his slumped position in the stool, chin leaning on his hand, Ned knew something was up with his best friend.  
“Hey man, what’s up with you this morning?”, Ned whispered.  
Peter blinked out of whatever stupor he was in and turned to Ned, “huh…… what, nothing, I’m fine”, he answered attempting to look clueless. Now Ned knew something was wrong, because he was Peter’s best friend and he knew they trusted each other no matter what.  
“Dude, it’s me. You can tell me what’s wrong, you know that.”  
Peter sighed, his shoulders slumping even further (Ned didn’t know they could even slump further than they already were). “Sorry… look, I’m sorry. I’m just tired because I was out late last night”, he answered while giving Ned a look to make sure he knew what he was up to last night, “yeah and Flash was on my back this morning, so I’m not in the best of moods right now, you know”. He sighed again, turning around and trying once more to pay attention to what Mr Harrington was saying.  
“Don’t worry about Flash, you can easily get back at him later by showing up at practice, you know how much he hates that,” Ned whispered, trying to get a smile from his best friend, who seemed to be channelling Eeyore today. Instead, however, it earned him a sharp shocked look. Clearly Peter had forgotten about practice after school today.   
“I totally forgot about practice today dude!” Peter whisper yelled. “I still have to do our lab report for tomorrow – I was going to do it last night, but I got caught up! Aw man, I am so screwed!”, he whined, holding his face in his hands.   
“Mr Parker, could you repeat what I just said for the class?” Mr Harrington asked, clearly noticing that Peter had become just a little distracted during his lecture. Peter’s head shot up towards his teacher, mouth gaping like a fish while trying to figure out what he was supposed to say to avoid getting another detention.  
“No, I thought not. Detention, lunch time Mr Parker. And please pay attention during my class”, Mr Harrington announced with a bored tone.  
“Yes sir. Sorry sir”, Peter replied, feeling thoroughly abashed. Ned watched guiltily as his chin returned to the palm of his hand and his best friend once again tried to pay attention. He noticed a scowl forming on Peter’s features as he saw Flash spin around quickly, shooting Peter a decidedly smug look. I really need to cheer him up after this, Ned considered. 

By the time the bell sounded, signalling the end of the school day, Peter had decided he was completely and utterly done with this day. And he still had decathlon practice to go before he could go home and hide under his covers for an hour or two to recover. Can’t wait for this, Peter thought bitterly. 

Walking into the hall, Peter was met by a smiling Ned and a smug looking Flash amongst the rest of the team. Taking his seat at the table beside Ned, who shot him a smile which clearly said you know what to do, Peter managed a weak smile in return. Peter had noticed that Ned had been doing his best all day to cheer him up, so figured the least he could do was make an effort to go through with this idea. Besides, it could be fun to completely wipe the floor with Flash. This thought was vindicated when Flash turned to him and loudly declared, “Parker, I didn’t think we would see you today. You certainly haven’t seemed to be on top of... Well… anything today!” 

Yeah, Peter thought, I think Ned may have been on to something here.

And damn was Ned right. Given the motivation, and fuelled by frustration and humiliation, Peter answered around 70% of Mr Harrington’s practice questions and had adopted Flash’s smug smile as his own. At the end of practice, Flash stormed off without comment, and Peter considered that as a win for him. He turned to his best friend and saw him yet again giving him his beaming smile.   
“That’s what I was talking about, man, that was awesome!!” Ned exclaimed, patting Peter on the shoulder.   
“Thanks, man. This was all you”, Peter replied, extremely grateful to have a friend who knew him like Ned knew him.   
“Did you see Flash’s face when he walked out of here!! Man, I wish I got a picture of that!!” Ned laughed, as they stood, collecting their things and walking from the hall.   
“Yeah, me too”, Peter replied, with him own beaming smile to match that on Ned’s face. 

Peter walked towards the train in pace with his best friend, in a decidedly better mood than that morning.


End file.
